make skin (1 Viewer)

[jfcala]

hello every body, every body hello First i must to say you "chapeau" for the great work . Well, my question is, if i want make a skin, can i make it if i have no idea of programation, ( i think with a programme like nokia theme creator for nokia symbian) please excuse my english

 

[revs]

What would be best is that you start by taking a look at an existing skin and then try and modify it.

Skins are made up from lots of XML files. These files say what goes where by giving them a x and y coordinate and a size.

 

[jfcala]

thanks to your answer. But i look them and they are lot xml files and modify a little bit yes i can do it (change background, alignmentof some plugins(rssticker)) but fonts, colours,etc... and i reapet i´m not a programer if i try can i shoot low my pc? .
have any tutorial(basic)?

 

[Darre]

Theres a skin section in the wiki (on the frontpage).

I found learning stuff myself was easier tho.

 

[2BitSculptor]

I've just recently begun making my own skin. once you become familiar with where to look in each file to make changes it gets easier. You can make big font changes (selecting which font to use) in the' fonts.xml', and the 'references.xml' can set many defaults for when such fonts are used, but each xml may make little changes to what size fonts are used exactly for the final display. The same for x,y positions and height,width of objects graphics used, defaults are establisked in the 'references.xml' and adjustments are made in each skin as to to how it is displayed.

You can find a skin that is similar to what you are looking for, even though things are moved around in the wrong places, first you must make a working copy of the skin with some new name (I copied the folder for the PureVision skin - thank you Catavolt - to my desktop, renamed it, then dragged it back into the MediaPortal skins folder) Then start with making new graphics by loading the old graphics into Photoshop (or which graphics editor you like) and looking to see how the graphics are made. Many of the graphics for buttons, hovers (overlay images) and even backgrounds have alpha channels for transparency, blends and cuttouts. There is a lot of going back and forth, making changes to graphics and making changes to position/size in the xml. I also sometimes grab ideas and graphics from other skins.


I use 'XML Notepad 2007' to edit my xmls (it is free download... just google it), it keeps all the details grouped together in a tree rather than a string of programming code, and you can collapse or expand the details as you need, to keep them sorted out.

There is also a suggested program (I don't recall it just now) to run in the background of MediaPortal that will reload the xml's after you save edits from the xml editor... by hitting F5..., to see the result on the screen. You must delete the cache for the skin each time you make changes to graphics, though (you have to shut down Media Portal first or you will get error alerts), because MediaPortal creates quick-loading graphics files each time it loads a new skin. If you don't delete the cache first, it will not know about the new graphics.


It can be overwhelming when you first get into it, but with persistence you can do it. When I am working on my skin, I might have MediaPortal running in a window, Photoshop running, and 2 or 3 instances of XML Notepad.. as well as the media folder, the root skin folder and the cache folder open at the same time.

I hope that encourages you.

Chuck

 

[jfcala]

thanks every body,2bitsculptor, you've convinced me, i try it.